The paint tools in After Effects are usually used for cloning or filling in mattes, but they can also be used to create stop-motion-style animation. In this movie you’ll see how they can be used to create a stop-motion style without the need for painful frame-by-frame tweaking of keyframes or drawings.
In this Jumpstart tutorial I’ll show you how to create a little animated stickman, creating a looping walk cycle. I hope you can use the tips and tricks from this tutorial to create your own unique twist on my idea. If you do please come back here and post a link to your creation, I’d love to see it!
There are a few Jumpstart tutorials included with the Learn by Video DVD. These are designed to give you a quick overview of a particular technique. The DVD also contains many more detailed tutorials, designed to take you through techniques and tech you After Effects using a more detailed step-by-step approach. I hope you enjoy watching them as much as I enjoyed making them.
Lip-syncing is something that all animators will be asked to do at some point in their career. The following technique automates the process of lip sync in After Effects and uses only built-in features of Adobe After Effects – no extra software is required! This video tutorial is an updated version for Adobe CS5. Tutorial files and a text-based version of the tutorial for older versions of After Effects are available here if you want to follow along.
This project was a test project for a job for the BBC. They contacted me and asked if it was possible to create a minute of lip-synced animation on a cartoon character. The budget was really tight, as was the deadline, so I had only one day to create a character that lip-synced to a provided sound track for a full minute.
Of course it was the BBC so I could hardly say no! So I said “Yes, no problem, I’ll take the job!” The minute I put the phone down I thought, “Oh Blimey! What have I got myself into?” I went to bed that night worrying about how I’d manage to get the job done. I tossed and turned, having nightmares about failing in my first job with the BBC. Then suddenly I sat bolt upright in bed and thought, “hang on a minute, what if I use Time Remapping with the Convert Audio To Keyframes Assistant, I’m sure that’ll work!” (That’s the kind of sad geek I really am!) 😉
Anyway, I leapt out of bed, ran over to my computer and put together a test project to see if it would work. This is the very project I put together as a test to see if the technique would work. Luckily, it did and I got the job done on time!
I found this to be a really great book and is suitable for anyone who works or has an interest in motion graphics or animation. It would help someone who is studying at college, but is also very useful for those that have been in the industry a long time. I fall into the later category and was formally trained at art school in the early 80’s but I found it very useful to revisit many of the fundamental ideas that I was taught in those days which give me a solid grounding. It also gave me many new ideas and covered areas that did not exist or were in their infancy when I was a student.
I really liked the sections on colour, typography and especially the section on composition which everyone in the industry should be familiar with but clearly are not. I’m sure this would fill in the gaps for people such as avid editors who have a purely technical background and would also inspire those who are creative technophobes to get stuck in with the computer packages today which frighten many with their complexity.
I have shown the book to my manager at Sky and he will be buying some copies for the post production dept to read. He was was also very impressed.
I live in the corporate world of information technology. For the most part, this existence for me is based in an engineering mindset – plan, design, build, test, deliver.
In my IT world, artists are thought to be undisciplined in these areas. Angie Taylor’s book makes it clear that successful artists clearly execute in much the same way as the best scientists. While they bring a creative streak that may not appear…Read More
I live in the corporate world of information technology. For the most part, this existence for me is based in an engineering mindset – plan, design, build, test, deliver.
In my IT world, artists are thought to be undisciplined in these areas. Angie Taylor’s book makes it clear that successful artists clearly execute in much the same way as the best scientists. While they bring a creative streak that may not appear in engineering and science, they owe their success in business to their ability to plan, execute and deliver a satisfactory product on time, on budget.
The author takes the reader through a series of concepts, starting with sketching. At first I didn’t understand what this had to do with Motion Media. But it very quickly became obvious why this was important. The book gives a great primer and cites numerous references (including current online resources) that may be used to dig in deeper.
From there the book explores a number of concepts familiar to practicing artists – composition, story-boards, software packages (again with numerous references to some terrific resources), and all while developing the concepts in a way that follows the workflow of projects.
I am reading this book (and several others) to gain a better command of the concepts I hope to apply to the use of my HD-movie capability of my DSLR. I believe that making movies, even if they end up being glorified home movies of my family, will benefit from a basic understanding of what goes into good motion media.
This book has something to offer beginners like me as well as practicing professionals who need to update their understanding of motion media. I will probably read this book twice – the illustrations are wonderful, and perfectly on point, the explanations are very understandable, even for someone with little experience in this field (though I have been a photographer for a long time).
The many resources cited as places to dig deeper are all quality products and have clearly been vetted thoroughly by the author.
This is a solid book with much to offer. If you’re just getting into motion media like me, or perhaps you’d like to step into the latest tools and concepts, don’t hesitate to buy and read this book.
I saw a post on the After Effects mailing list today asking how to wrap text around a circle in After Effects. Here’s how it’s done;
1) Create a text layer with the text you want.
2) Select the layer and then, with the Ellipse tool, draw a circular Mask on the Text layer.
3) Open the Layer in the Timeline by clicking it’s disclosure triangle and then open the ‘Text’ section too.
4) Open the ‘Path Options” and in there you’ll see a drop down menu under ‘Path’ where you can select your Mask, the text should now wrap around the circle.
5) You can use the controls under ‘Path’, and the controls on the selected path in the Composition panel to adjust it to suit.
Tip! Remember to save it as a preset for future jobs so you don’t have to continuously repeat the process each time you need a circular path text effect!
Tip! There are also a load of free Animation Presets that create text on paths in the Effects and Presets panel, or you can Browse them in Bridge to get a real preview of what they look like before applying them.
I want to share an example of one of my tutorials that I’m very proud to say inspired a great piece of work, “Black Day to Freedom” by the amazing Rob Chiu. I met Rob after watching a very inspiring talk he gave at the Flash on the Beach conference a few years back. I approached him after the talk to tell him how much I enjoyed it and was blown away when he told me that the movie he had shown was partly inspired by my own tutorials. We have since kept in touch and Rob has contributed to my latest book, Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist.
I’ve recently recorded the tutorial on video and want to share it with you. I’m in the process of updating some of my most popular demos and tutorials for my video2brain Adobe After Effects CS5 Learn by VideoDVD.I’m featuring one FREE tutorial per week for the next five weeks here in my blog. If you like these free tutorials you can also buy the DVD here.
My 3D Cityscape tutorial is one that I’ve had great feedback on and it really was one of the biggest compliments when an artist I admire told me that this demo had inspired some of his own work. Rob Chiu (AKA The Ronin) is a well respected live action commercial director and photographer. Black Day to Freedom was one of his first films, an animation entirely built in After Effects. This was actually inspired at least technically by this tutorial where a very basic city is built with skyscrapers and lights. Rob took this as a starting point and created his own world to help anchor the story. You can find out more about Rob on his website or you can read the foreword he wrote and see exmples of his work in my latest book, Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist.
The tutorial was developed co-written with myself and my good friend, Paul Tuersley, visual effects artist and After Effects guru of the highest order. Paul has worked on various feature films including Kick Ass, Angels and Demons and 10,000 BC. Paul came up with the initial idea to build a real 3D environment from basic flat layers within After Effects. This technique has now been used widely in a variety of different ways both in Motion Graphic designs and animation projects. Paul is also the moderator at AE Enhancers, a fabulous resource for After Effects artists that you should also check out.
In this updated tutorial you’ll see how easy it is to create graphics from absolutely nothing, directly within After Effects. You’ll also see how to create 3D environments and build scenes for your animations. I’ve also included the project file you’ll need to go through the tutorial here 3D_City.aep. After going through the tutorial I’d love to see examples of what you’ve done with it so please post links in the comments section.
These Creative After Effects Bonus Tutorials are ones created specifically for readers of my “Creative After Effects”books but are also freely available to everyone who visits my website.They were designed for previous versions of After Effects but still contain useful tips, tricks and techniques. These books contain many more in depth tutorials on Adobe After Effects and related topics. It also includes a free CD full of goodies and training materials for your delectation!I welcome feedback from readers as it is essential to the growth and development of the book and website. If you have any comments or feedback please feel free to leave comments.
Keylight Training movie This is a sample movie from my book “Creative After Effects 7″. The tutorial focusses on how to use The Foundry’s Keylight in After Effects to key out really badly shot DV footage. Angie shares tips and tricks on how to avoid problems and to fix them once they occur.
Character Animation tutorial I’ve done a fair bit of character animation using After Effects, mainly cut-out animation, similar to the style Terry Gilliam used in the Monty Python animations and not too dissimilar to South Park’s style of animation.Till Parenting was introduced, I always used complex nesting procedures to link the individual parts of my characters together. I would draw them in Illustrator with each part on a separate layer, bring it in as a Comp and then Pre-comp the body parts together as needed.Parenting gets rid of the need for complex nesting hierarchies, I can now link the body parts together in one composition. This tutorial simplifies and demystifies the processes, making them less intimidating to those who have never used Parenting.
The Talking Dog Lip syncing Tutorial for After Effects 6 is based on the After Effects 5.5 Production Bundle but can also be followed using the version 5.0 PB. If you want to get hold of an updated After Effects CS5 version of this tutorial, complete with new footage, it’s available as part of my After Effects CS5 Learn by Video DVD in association with Adobe’s Todd Kopriva.
This tutorial shows you how to use Motion Math scripts and Time Remapping on a 3D – rendered character to automate the process of lip-synching. I used this technique in an animated program which was broadcast on a major UK TV network.
Multipass for After Effects 5.5 and Cinema 4DXL These comprehensive tutorials cover techniques for creating multipass renders as well as importing and manipulating the multiple passes in After Effects 5.5.Using a whole host of old and new features to bring your 3D scene to life you will learn the basic principles and discover the power and flexibility that can be achieved by rendering out your 3D scene in passes.
Well, another year comes to an end and the holidays are about to begin. What better way to spend your time off than sitting back comfortably and allowing me to entertain you with some of my latest After Effects CS5 tutorials?
Here’s a free tutorial movie for you, taken from the “Jumpstarts” section of the video2brainAfter Effects CS5 Learn by Video DVD that I created this year in collaboration with Todd Kopriva from Adobe. You’ll also find lots of other free tutorials alongside this one so please enjoy them and let us know what you think. You can read what Eran Stern said about our DVD training here in his blog.
After Effects has great tools for character animation called the Puppet tools. The Puppet Pin tool places a mesh over your footage using the alpha channel. You can add points to this mesh that allow to distort it and animate it, providing some really natural movement for your animations and motion graphics projects.
The Puppet tool is as fun to use as a kids toy so get stuck in, have some fun and learn how to use this great set of tools to create your own fun animations.
It’s a hot debate, as a designer, is it important to have drawing skills? I mean, you don’t need to draw anymore really? Surely computers can do it all for you now, download a few images, treat them with filters, composite them together in Adobe Photoshop – Bob’s yer uncle (as we say in the UK!)
But drawing is not only a process used to create finished aesthetic imagery to include in a finished design, it’s much more than that. It’s a learning process that is an important stage in the development of a confident visual language. When you draw something you learn to see with a different, more focused awareness. You start to question why things appear in a certain way, as a result you can understand how things are constructed, how light interacts with surfaces and how colors affect each other. Things that may not occur to you by just simply looking at an object. you need to truly understand these things to make your drawings work. Even if you don’t like your finished drawings, that really doesn’t matter, it’s the process of losing yourself in the craft of drawing that matters.
And it’s never too late to learn, in the Drawing chapter of my book, Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist I talk about my mother who didn’t start drawing till she was in her 70’s. It has made a huge difference to her life and now she can draw and paint like she would never have thought. You can check out excerpts from this chapter using Amazon’s “Search Inside” feature now. The chapter also contains some of the exercises that helped me learn to draw during my time at Art College. There’s also a resources section on this website that contains some tips, tricks and links to useful tutorials, websites and a complete reading list.
Drawing Exercise from Design Essentials book – draw 6 circular objects with the same drawing implement achieving different textures for each
Writing this book inspired me to include more about drawing in my software tutorial too. I recently recorded a new video training workshop for video2brain on Animation Character Design in Adobe Illustrator which will be available soon. In this tutorial I showed that you don’t need to limit yourself to using traditional drawing materials. In one of the tutorials I show how to create body shapes from primitive shapes and then use Illustrators fabulous drawing tools to sculpt these into more organic shapes, it’s an addictive and very creative process.
So, I hope that you’ll give drawing a chance, pick up whichever implement inspires you to make marks and get sketching! don’t worry about the outcome, just enjoy the process!
Last month I made a life-changing decision to resign from my post as Creative Director of GridIron Software and return to self-employment. This was not an easy decision to make, particularly at this time of economic uncertainty but sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and do what you feel is right, deep down in your heart, despite the difficulties that it may create for you along the way.
I’ve been with GridIron Software for two years, working with a fantastic team on some truly ground-breaking products. It all started at IBC 2008 when I worked with the GridIron gang for the first time. They were a great bunch of folks – a really creative and inspiring team. I was doing some freelance work for them when Steve Forde (The CEO at the time) offered me the opportunity to see if a full-time role in the software industry was something that I’d like to pursue. I couldn’t imagine a better team to test the waters with. The GridIron gang were not a typical corporate software company, they were a bunch of engineers, stars of creative media business and designers who got together to try to break the mould and create something truly unique, which they did.
Before GridIron I’d worked as a freelance designer and animator for sixteen years and before that worked at various jobs including deejay, cartoonist and modelmaker. But self-employment can be exhausting and can take its toll. You end up diversifying to make a living and I had somehow become sidetracked into spending over 50% of my time working in the software industry for folks like Adobe and Apple as a demo artist. I felt divided at the time, as if I was being a jack of all trades, trying to split my time between two related but fundamentally different careers. Neither career was getting the full attention that it needed to make it blossom and I was literally exhausted from trying to make it work. So I decided to grab the opportunity with both hands in order to find out if working full-time was really something I wanted to do. I gave up self-employment after about twenty years of being my own boss and began working as Creative Director at GrdiIron.
I have learned so much during my time at GridIron and have made some life-long friendships so I don’t regret joining one bit. I learned about marketing and was amazed to find that it was something I actually enjoyed. I did some visual UI design which was something I’d always wanted to do but never thought I could – and I loved it. I learned more about software development and how the whole process works. I wrote user guides, web content, marketing copy and collateral. I learned the importance of creating good working structures, using statistics and listening to other people’s opinions.
But I’ve also learned a lot by looking back at my previous periods self-employment from a different perspective and recognizing both the aspects that I missed, and the ones that I didn’t. I learned that I really do need to have a creative aspect to my work. I need to work with lots of inspiring people from different walks of life and from different creative industries. I want to help other creative people to succeed in what they do. But most of all I want to feel truly independent and be able to say what I want, when I want. I have so much that I want to communicate with people and I need to do it my own way. I also learned that I want these things so much that I’m prepared to take a risk. Things have certainly changed since my last period of self-employment – it’s not as easy to find work now as it was back then. But the other thing I love is a challenge. I’m going to take a bit of time out to recuperate from a very busy year, get my thoughts together and then put everything I’ve learned into action. So watch this space – here goes! Head first into the deep unknown! Wish me luck I’m going in!
I’ve just watched a great After Effects tutorial, made by my good friend, the great Peder Norby of Trapcode fame. He’s dome a wonderful job of teaching you how to get the best volumetric smoke effects using Particular.
I love this tutorial as it was totally improvised so it shows how he had to experiment to get the settings right. Check out his tutorial and if you don’t already own Particular, you can also download a free trial of Trapcode Particular from the Red Giant website so you can try it out.
I also stumbled upon a very kind and generous offer from Andrew Kramer at Video Copilot. Andrew is giving away 100 MB of stock footage free this month to say a big thanks to his followers. Nice one Andrew! 🙂
My dear friend and esteemed and talented After Effects aficionado, Aharon Rabinowitz has posted my 1960’s retro “Pop-art” tutorial up on Red Giant TV. I actually recorded it in the 1960’s but it’s taken this long for technology to catch up to a stage where it can broadcast a whole hour (almost) of FREE After Effects video training online! Download and enjoy, it’s all free and includes tutorial files! You’ll love Aharon’s “authentic” Scottish accent at the end!
The Last picture I took of Ari on Brighton Beack earlier this year.
It was with a huge amount of sadness and shock that I heard about the death of my friend, Ari Up this week. I first met Ari in Aberdeen in 1978 when I was 14 and she was 16, fronting my all-time favorite band, the Slits. She was my hero back then, I totally looked up to her. I’m honored to say that she also became my friend, and what a caring, compassionate and life-enhancing friend she really was! She made me feel OK about who I was – a strange, bespectacled, gay, noisy, ugly-duckling with frizzy hair – not your typical girl!
I had become immersed in the punk movement because it initially represented originality, individuality, anarchy, creativity, chaos, inventiveness but had become disillusioned when it all started to change into conformity to it’s own set of established rules. The Slits were a proud exception, they never conformed to the male-dominated, tribe-like constructs of punk. Instead they truly stuck to it’s core principles, ignoring it’s prescribed fashions and making it up themselves as they went along their merry, musical way.
Ari and the other Slits had immense musical talent and originality which was sadly never fully recognized by the mainstream industry while Ari was alive. Their seminal album “Cut” is listed in many high-profile lists of all time top albums, and it received well-deserved critical acclaim. But their music was often too challenging, uncomfortable or simply unfashionable (a term often used to describe art that is ground-breaking). But they produced so much more that remains largely ignored, including the amazing Earthbeat with it’s wonderful tribal meanderings. Give their music another listen – I dare you!
Ari at the last Slits gig in Brighton
Throughout the last few years I got to know Ari better. We worked together on some filming I did for The Slits and Ari’s other band, the True Warriors. I still have footage that we always planned to get out there but I never had time to edit. So, keep your eyes peeled and watch this space. My next project will be to edit the interviews I did with Ari and cut some of the concert footage, as a tribute to my friend.
A still from the videos I shot at the Underworld gig in Camden
Ari was never afraid to stand up for what she believed in. She always stuck up for the down-trodden in society and accepted people whoever they were. She was always gracious and kind-hearted to her “fans” and made everyone around her feel special. She was truly on-in-a-million and I will miss her so much.
Week four of 2011 brings my fourth FREE Giveaway Tutorial.
